Computation with Phonons/Heat

Computation with phonons/heat

Professor Baowen Li

Director of Centre for Computational Science, NationalUniversity of Singapore

Abstract:

Information processing in the world's computers is mostly carried out in compact electronic devices, which use the flow of electrons both to carry and control information. There are, however, other potential information carriers, such as photons, which are parcels of light. Indeed a major industry, photonics, has developed around the sending of messages encoded in pulsed light.

In this talk I will demonstrate via different theoretical models of thermal devices such as thermal diode and thermal transistor that, heat pulses, or phonons, rippling through a crystal might also become a major carrier. By combining thermal transistor in different ways, one can also build up thermal logic gate, thus open the possibility that, heat energy already present in abundance in electronic devices, can be used to process information and even to do computation. Moreover, I will also demonstrate that the phononic information can be read and store in the phononic memory. Experiments in nanostructures will be discussed.

References:

(1)B. Li et al Phys. Rev Lett 93, 184301 (2004)

(2)B. Li et al Phys. Rev. Lett 95, 104302 (2005)

(3)B. Li et al Appl. Phys. Lett 88, 143501 (2006)

(4)L Wang and B Li, Phys. Rev. Lett 99, 177208 (2007)

(5)L Wang and B Li, arXiv0808.3311v1

More about phononic computer can be found at the following media coverage:

(a)Physics News Update:

(b)Physics World article:

Phononic computer Could process information with heat

About the speaker:

Professor Li received his B.Sci (1985) from NanjingUniversity and M.Sci (1989) from the Institute of Acoustics, ChineseAcademy of Science, Beijing. In 1990 he received a Max-Planck Scholarship and went to Germany for his Ph. D study. He finished his Ph. D thesis within two years, and got a Dr.rer.nat degree in 1992 from Universitat of Oldenburg. He joined the NUS in July 2000 as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2003, then to full professor in 2007. He is currently Executive Director of NUS GraduateSchool for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, and Director of Centre for Computational Science and Engineering. He has published 103 papers in refereed journals including 17 in Phys. Rev. Lett and delivered more than 90 keynote and invited talks. He has been awarded NUS Young Researcher Award in 2003, Temasek Young Investigator Award in 2004, National Science Award 2005, Singapore, and 2005 Overseas Chinese Physics Association (OCPA) Asia Achievement Award. 2007 IOP World Scientific Prize and Medal. He is concurrent professor at NanjingUniversity, guest professor at BeijingNormalUniversity, guest professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and advisory professor at EastChinaNormalUniversity.